Wednesday, November 4, 2009 | Science : Psychiatry and Psychology | print version

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The Upside of Feeling Down

by Sharon Begley - Newsweek

http://www.newsweek.com/id/220858

Happiness has had a tough time of it lately. The backlash against the seemingly endless stream of books about the subject (Amazon returned 426,789 titles when I used that search term, including one that calls happiness "life's most important skill") had already set in last year. At the time, I pointed out that "among people with late-stage illnesses, those with the greatest sense of well-being were more likely to die in any given period of time than the mildly content were. Being 'up' all the time can cause you to play down very real threats," and channeled the arguments of scholars who lamented the medicalization of the normal human emotion of sadness.

These and other critiques of happiness and the happiness industry, however, came mostly from psychologists, philosophers, and sociologists who are concerned about the effect of a message that says modest levels of well-being aren't enough, and that we all practically have a duty to be really, really happy—and that what was once considered normal sadness is something to be smothered, even shunned. I was therefore interested to see a new scientific paper taking a more brain-based perspective. (My thanks to The Psych Student blog for drawing my attention to it.)

Writing in the journal Psychological Review, postdoctoral fellow Paul Andrews of Virginia Commonwealth University and psychiatrist J. Anderson Thomson Jr. of the University of Virginia present research suggesting that depression is present in the species, and in individuals, for a purpose, and we're playing with fire if we try to eradicate it. In evolution-speak, depression is an "adaptation," they argue. That is, it evolved because it made individuals who experienced it fitter, under natural selection, than individuals who did not experience it. Andrews and Thomson—who is best known for research on the psychology of religious belief, and who has also studied whether antidepressants threaten love and fidelity—offer as evidence the presence of a molecule in the brain called the 5HT1A receptor. This serves as a docking port for the neurochemical serotonin, which the Prozac/Zoloft/Paxil class of antidepressants targets. Human brains are not the only ones with the 5HT1A receptor. Rats also have it.
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Posted: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 | Permalink

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1. Comment #429431 by elpopstardo on November 4, 2009 at 4:33 pm

First Comment, shame I have nothing to say

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2. Comment #429432 by Quetzalcoatl on November 4, 2009 at 4:33 pm

I'm a little dubious about the claims made in this article.

Depression tends to focus thinking. That 5HT1A receptor, it turns out, also supplies neurons with fuel, allowing them to fire without flagging. That includes neurons in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which have to fire continuously to keep the mind from wandering. (It's an attention circuit.) Focused thinking, like analytical thinking, might help someone overcome depression.

So depression focuses thinking in a way that allows people to overcome being depressed? That doesn't exactly sound advantageous. Why not avoid being depressed in the first place?

Depression tends to make sufferers seek isolation, and keeps them from deriving pleasure from sex, food, or life itself. Obviously this can be crippling (and even fatal) to the sufferer. But it may also be adaptive: these behaviors foster the kind of focused and deliberative thinking that might solve the problem that triggered the depression in the first place.

This seems a little repetitive. I can understand, obviously, that focussed thinking is useful in understanding and resolving problems, but why is it necessary that a person be depressed in order to do that, with all the negative baggage that this entails? Thinking your way out of depression surely isn't that easy.

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3. Comment #429433 by flying goose on November 4, 2009 at 4:34 pm

But this way of thinking, note the scientists, is "often highly analytical."

One thing I have noticed is just this, I was not very good at analysing before, that's changed, for the better. When I look at my first posts here at the beginning and worst of my depression, I was much less analytical then i am now. My depression has been a real training ground.

Not only that it has also stripped me of the accumulated personnal mythology I had amassed over the years. My story is much clearer as a result.

I am better now BTW.

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4. Comment #429436 by Sally Luxmoore on November 4, 2009 at 4:41 pm

Comment #429433 by flying goose

I'm sorry to hear that you have been depressed, FG, and glad to hear it has improved.

Do you really think that it is depression that has stripped away your 'mythology', though? If you think this site has played a part, couldn't it just be exposure to arguments specifically tailored to counter those beliefs that has done it?

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5. Comment #429438 by annabanana on November 4, 2009 at 4:46 pm

Sciam had a much better article very similar to this one. I found the sciam article to be much more convincing. Check it out here:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=depressions-evolutionary

The most convincing part of it to me was that according to the current diagnostic criteria, at any given time, 30-50% of the population is suffering from depression. If "depression" as it is currently defined is such an aberration in our species, why does such a significant portion of the population have it?

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6. Comment #429439 by Quetzalcoatl on November 4, 2009 at 4:48 pm

annabanana-

The most convincing part of it to me was that according to the current diagnostic criteria, at any given time, 30-50% of the population is suffering from depression.

Really? That seems rather high. I'll have to read the article.

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7. Comment #429440 by annabanana on November 4, 2009 at 4:49 pm

I think the point is to better focus attention not in order to overcome the depression, but to solve the problem that triggered the depression in the first place. If more neurons are dedicated to solving the problem, it will get solved faster than if a person were not depressed.

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8. Comment #429441 by Quetzalcoatl on November 4, 2009 at 4:53 pm

annabanana-

I guess the point I was making is that it seems counterproductive that in order for more neurons to be focussed on solving a problem, the person also has to be depressed and suffer the negative connotations that go with it, especially since depression is something that people can struggle with for years.

It seems inefficient, but then perhaps, from an evolutionary standpoint, I shouldn't be surprised by that.

Does anyone know what the diagnostic criteria for depression are? Just curious.

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9. Comment #429443 by flying goose on November 4, 2009 at 4:56 pm

Sally

This was two years ago, it did coinside with my arrival here, that is I arrived depressed.

I would say that depression is part of the picture. But not the whole, it took head searching with a therapist, time in quiet chapels, coming here certainly was very helpful many people here who are now friends on facebook, were very helpful in terms of exposing bad arguments etc but also helping me to come to terms with my agnosticism.

Added to that the people in the outside world,(This site is very much part of my inner world) wife children friends, collegues etc.

Depression is part that whole picture. And it was helpful. To quote Morrisey, I can smile about it now but at the time it was terrible.

It was part of a cure for a much deeper maliase.

I would liken it to the scab that forms over a wound.

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10. Comment #429444 by jgravelle on November 4, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Lots of modern health care skews the delicate balance(s) of natural selection. We correct for poor eyesight instead of letting people walk off cliffs or out into traffic.

But unless/until the Lazik Hut down at the mall can begin correcting the genetic predisposition for nearsightedness, we have to accept that the populace's long-term consequences for the individual's short-term medical corrections are unavoidable.

Sigh. If only the government could promote genetic purity, perhaps under the guise of becoming our centralized public health authority?

Nah. Preposterous. Nobody in their right mind would support such a nefarious plan...

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11. Comment #429445 by squinky on November 4, 2009 at 5:02 pm

Evolutionary psychobabble spandrel

5HT1 receptor evolved 'for' depression and the 5HT2B receptor evolved 'for' obesity. Just think of how fit we all could be!

This article is crap--playing with fire by treating depression£ I see. Those who take Prozac and Xoloft are making themselves less evolutionarily fit. This article falsely equates happiness with avoiding depression.

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12. Comment #429447 by Sally Luxmoore on November 4, 2009 at 5:07 pm

Comment #429443 by flying goose

This is not the place (obviously) to discuss private things, but, if you don't mind saying -

Was what was left of your faith helpful to you when you were feeling low, or, if it was either neutral or unhelpful, was that a factor in your moving away from it?

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13. Comment #429450 by annabanana on November 4, 2009 at 5:11 pm

Quetz,

Perhaps then the aberration lies not in the depression, but in the amount of time that the person suffers the depression and whether or not the depression actually rectifies anything and the DSM-IV should be changed to reflect that?

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14. Comment #429452 by Quetzalcoatl on November 4, 2009 at 5:14 pm

Squinky-

I don't know if I'd go as far as that.

5HT1 receptor evolved 'for' depression

Well the article did say this:

Rodents that have a mutation causing them to lose this receptor exhibit fewer symptoms of depression when they suffer some stress, a 1998 paper reported.

That is obviously evidence that it is linked to depression.

It can be argued, as the writers are, that the fact that this receptor has not been selected against suggests that it, and correspondingly depression, confers some kind of advantage.

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15. Comment #429453 by flying goose on November 4, 2009 at 5:16 pm

Sally,

The discipline of saying the office; the sight sounds, smells and tastes of the liturgy; the community in which I work the people I work with.

Paying more attention to those moments , however small, of transcendence.
Learning to be mindful, using those methods given to me by my monastic friends.

In some ways I have gone deeper in, not further away.

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16. Comment #429454 by TIKI AL on November 4, 2009 at 5:20 pm

Rodney Dangerfield suffered from depression:

"Most people wake up, and the sun is shining in, and they say: "Up and at 'em, a new day!".

I wake up and the heavyness is hanging over me like a cloud. And sometimes I talk to the heavyness: "Hi, heavyness."

And the heavyness answers: "Boy are you gonna get it today ...you'll be drinking early.""

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17. Comment #429455 by Sally Luxmoore on November 4, 2009 at 5:21 pm

Comment #429453 by flying goose

I still find your position on religion confusing!

But never mind - I'm glad you're feeling better.

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18. Comment #429456 by Quetzalcoatl on November 4, 2009 at 5:22 pm

Perhaps then the aberration lies not in the depression, but in the amount of time that the person suffers the depression and whether or not the depression actually rectifies anything and the DSM-IV should be changed to reflect that?

This is making me think, I like this. :)

I'm not sure. Although I can see that depression might well produce focussed thinking on the problem, in the article it said that some of those suffering from depression reported that their thoughts were not focussed and analytical in this way. Perhaps there's a distinction to be drawn there; focussed depression versus unfocussed depression, perhaps. Of course distinguishing between them would be problematic since it would be inherently dependent on the circumstances that prompted the depression to begin with.

I'll have to think about it some more.

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19. Comment #429458 by flying goose on November 4, 2009 at 5:29 pm

'I wake up and the heavyness is hanging over me like a cloud.'

That is it exactly. It is almost an external thing.

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20. Comment #429459 by Cartomancer on November 4, 2009 at 5:29 pm

Well well, how timely. I find this article in the midst of yet another bout of deep depression about my life. Coincidence sure is a strange thing.

Now, these days I try to spare the public at large from my depressive ruminations. They already fill 70,000 words of poetry and prose across several folders on my hard drive, and it's not as if I generally have anything new to say anymore. Nevertheless, they are directly relevant to these studies, so I shall break my rule this once.

I recognise a lot of what this article is saying in my own behaviour. I have always been obsessively prone to rumination when depressed, which is quite often. I do find myself turning over, analysing, comparing and picking apart my problems in a very compulsive way. I have never actually enjoyed sex with other people, despite the biological compulsion to do it, and food often loses its charms when I am at the nadir of my fortunes.

This has, alas, been going on for ten years now. I can report that, eventually, the individual bouts of depression subside but the over-arching problems that have led to it remain just as bad as ever. In fact, my moods have got steadily worse as the implacable, insoluble nature of my problems becomes more apparent and more all-consuming.

Perhaps if there WERE a solution to my problem I would have discovered it by now. I've certainly put as much effort as I possibly can into finding one. But how can you make someone love you, or stop yourself from loving the one true love of your life, your first, your only love? How can you stop the fact he ignores you and spends all his time with his boyfriend from tearing through your soul like shards of broken glass? How can you redirect your ardour onto another if nobody finds you remotely attractive? How can you cope when nobody understands how deep your love is, how powerfully acidic it has become? When nobody takes your side and just tells you to get over it? When nobody recognises any validity in your truest and deepest feelings of all, and everybody takes the side of the bastard Usurper who has stolen away your one true love, telling you that you are the problem?

Perhaps depression can be a useful spark to solving problems, but it is useless when there is no solution to be had. Though, to be honest, the idea of improving counselling and psychiatry with an injection of evolutionary psychology and neuroscience sounds like a positive step - the counsellors and psychiatrists I have been seeing these last five years have achieved precisely nothing, save increased expenditure on biscuits and tissues.

No stronger love there ever was
Than that which binds my heart to yours
Not Helen’s, Tristan’s, none of those,
Nor Orpheus’s, nor Romeo’s.

Your kind demeanour, beauty bright
Have set my fragile soul alight
Your perfect face upon my thought
Has rack and ruin nightly wrought

With kindness you have fed the blaze
Compassion serves to draw my gaze
Truest friendship rends my side
Upon your cross now crucified

Your body, lithe and strong and pale
Your hair, a blackened mourning veil,
Your smile, in which my world dissolves
Have picked me clean like starving wolves

I falter, fumble, fail and scream
Assailed in daylight and in dream
I try to purge you from my soul
To make me half to make me whole

Such power you hold, my dearest friend,
To see me blessed or else condemned
To save me, damn me, at your whim,
I give my soul, yet you choose him.

My love for you will never fade
It’s simply how my mind is made
All I can do is learn to cope
With resignation, not with hope.

Within myself I search in vain
For balms and salves to ease the pain
To quench the burning fires of love
Astarte’s flaming brand remove

I would destroy the universe
To quell the blaze and end the curse
Unmake reality, destroy
Unfeeling fate, my darling boy

Yet all the power I hold is weak
I can but feel and sing and speak
Express in verse my darkest fears
And hope my words hold back my tears

I can’t impress with wit or charm
I have no strength in chest or arm
No skill with which to win your heart
I can but watch and write my part

With metric rhyme I must begin,
The only skill I’ve talent in,
Compose so I may yet be free
I bind my pain in poetry

As spells I craft each line and verse
As magic words to lift my curse
To kill the daemon, end its claim,
First you must give voice its name

A prison I intend they be
They hold my pain and keep from me
The anguish otherwise I’d feel
Give me time to rest and heal.

Imperfect, yes, my magic is
No match for all the spells of his
Which daily flay me so unfairly,
Still, it keeps me sane, though barely.

In poems I shall drown the world
Until the snake around me curled
Lets free its grip for lack of air
And lets me live without despair.

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21. Comment #429473 by Demotruk on November 4, 2009 at 5:59 pm

Do rats ruminate? There must be more to it than thinking your problems over, or are they performing subconscious problem solving?

It is very interesting to suggest that rats could analyze their life problems which are causing them to be depressed subconsciously or not, but I find it hard to believe. I find it easier to believe that there is some other benefit to depression that we have not thought of yet.

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22. Comment #429479 by hungarianelephant on November 4, 2009 at 6:27 pm

Well that was pretty unsatisfactory.

First up, it seems to put the cart before the horse. The assumption is that depression would ordinarily be selected against. This is not evident. For it to have an evolutionary effect, it would need depressives to have fewer children on average. Why should this be so? Decreased appetite for food is not very convincing, since it is extremely rare for people to starve themselves to death under any circumstances. Decreased appetite for sex? Few of our sexual encounters result in the production of children. A marginal change in number is unlikely to make a lot of difference in the long run. Suicide? Contrary to popular belief, the correlaton between depression and suicide is not strong. This is obvious when you consider the huge numbers of occasional depressives and the relatively tiny number of suicides.

Secondly, who says there is a "reason" for depression anyway? There may be specific factors which trigger a bout, but that is not the same thing at all. So discussions about whether the state can help solve the problem that caused it are moot - as well as circular as Quetz points out.

anna - Thanks for posting the Scientific American link, which at least got into rather better detail.

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23. Comment #429481 by George Lennan on November 4, 2009 at 6:29 pm

Oscar off sesame street:
"When i am sad, that makes me happy... but that makes me sad.. which makes me happy... so I get real down, which makes me real glad, and that makes me sad... which makes me happy...."

Are we saying we should be chuffed to be depressed after all? Bollocks! Hand me the prozac nurse.

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24. Comment #429489 by Demotruk on November 4, 2009 at 6:51 pm

Depression is highly costly in that it prevents you from performing ordinary tasks without being distracted. If it continues for a long time it can do more mental damage. As such, if there is no reproductive benefit to being depressed, it should be expected to be selected against.

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25. Comment #429496 by bendigeidfran on November 4, 2009 at 7:04 pm

Well I'm depressed now. Thanks Carto.

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26. Comment #429500 by root2squared on November 4, 2009 at 7:19 pm

I am very skeptical about this. At the very least, this doesn't apply to me. If I'm feeling down, the last thing I feel like doing is to focus on anything. I prefer to do something mindless, like play a video game or watch a sitcom. Best is to just go for a run. A 6 mile run, and you're right back on top of the world.

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27. Comment #429524 by Corylus on November 4, 2009 at 8:47 pm

The trouble with both this and the sciam article is that it treats depression as a unitary phenomenon. This is not a given.

Now, if there were some distinction were made between bipolar and unipolar depression I might be inclined to see more possibilities here.

For example, if you are going to talk about increased focus of thought then a hypomanic episode might well be the way to go. However, a large part of critical thinking is constantly checking and rechecking conclusions that have already been drawn - aka self-regulation. This is not a hypomanic trait. Now you could argue that the social isolation would help foster self-regulation, but that is not a given either. While, admittedly there would be less distractions and while admittedly self-regulation is something we do to ourselves... well, other people can help remind us to engage in this process when we forgotten to do so.

Put less tactfully, everyone needs someone to tell them that they are being an idiot now and again

Bog standard unipolar depression seems an even harder sell for this idea. As for an evolutionary advantage to post-natal depression - well I wouldn't even want to go there.

However, while I am currently unconvinced, I certainly would not dismiss this wholesale. I am sure that the researchers have done much more work than briefly reported here. I simply can't help but wonder though whether the scope of this idea is something that would work only on a sub-set of depressives in a sub-set of environmental conditions: if indeed this idea does work at all.

-----
Carto

Lovely poem.

I am not going to tell you to not be sad about your situation, because you evidently are sad despite many "helpful" comments of this type.

What I will say is that it is possible to be gently sad - rather than ragingly, achingly, screamingly sad. A touch of amusement over what fools we all make of ourselves (over love and other things) can help switch us from one situation to another. Gentle sadness is not ideal either, but a change is as good as a rest as they say.

Book recommendation: Serious Concerns by Wendy Cope. The author of this book of poems is good at fostering this touch of amusement.

[Edit: Correction of hypergraphic punctuation]

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28. Comment #429525 by andersemil on November 4, 2009 at 8:53 pm

I don't believe there's anything positive to be said about depression. I think depression is a side-effect of some other mechanism which was naturally selected to be present. Actually much like religion :) I think depression should be compared to a snowball effect-- what is there at the beginning may be highly beneficiary, but as the effect goes on it turns on the subject and becomes very dangerous. Many highly productive artists have claimed to suffer from heavy depression from time to time, but I don't think anyone is very creative at the height of depression. It is evidently not an empowering feeling.

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29. Comment #429526 by Kmita on November 4, 2009 at 8:53 pm

Quetzalcoatl, your whole point of skipping past depression and it's perceived problem solving benefits has a flaw. It certainly would be convenient to just skip to the end with drugs, but you're neglecting the cause of depression. Drugs just treat the symptoms, they don't solve your problems for you.

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30. Comment #429541 by Rikitiki13 on November 4, 2009 at 9:25 pm

Carto: love your verse...such eloquence.

Ok, I'm not quite so schooled as some here, but couldn't it be that the evolutionary advantages of depression are just these:
a) being depressed (feeling bad about stuff) gets your attention and, therefore, focuses you on working through and/or accepting your reality. Which seems to me a better survival adaptation than religious or other 'blue-sky' happy-face denial mechanisms.
b) Those who can work through or live with depression pass on that trait, enabling future generations to better work through or live with depression.
c) Those who can't deal with depression suicide out and don't pass on the 'can't deal with it' trait(s).

Yeah, simplistic, I'm sure, but wanting to add to the discussion. Thanks.

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31. Comment #429542 by Quetzalcoatl on November 4, 2009 at 9:34 pm

Kmita-

Where did I mention anything about drugs?

EDIT- If you were talking about comment 2 where I asked why be depressed, I was speculating about the evolutionary reason. I wasn't talking about anything to do with drugs.

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32. Comment #429553 by PaulJ on November 4, 2009 at 10:24 pm

In other words, losing the receptor that promotes depression in response to stress is something evolution thought would be a very bad move.

I know she's speaking (writing) metaphorically, but this kind of language doesn't help. Evolution doesn't think; it has no opinion on whether a particular "move" would be bad or not. Natural selection is not sentient.

[pedantry: off]

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33. Comment #429575 by hiraethog on November 4, 2009 at 11:56 pm

Comment #429458 by flying goose
It appears that you are still churning things around. In many ways the whole reason for living is to churn things around, move stuff about. If you like what's moving that's fine, if you don't, that's not good. Stilling the mind and body breaks the spell of constant movement and throws light on the matter.

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34. Comment #429578 by wildhog on November 5, 2009 at 12:05 am

This supposed link between depression and attention span / ability to focus seems correct to me, intuitively speaking. Think of the great artists, musicians, and other focused, impassioned people. Seems like so many of them had struggles with depression. I cant picture a happy- go lucky type person practicing a violin 11 hours a day. They're too busy doing fun things (going to an amusement park, watching a football game..) that non-depressed people tend to do.

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35. Comment #429596 by wildhog on November 5, 2009 at 1:02 am

I'd like to hear from other people who have a tendency towards depression. Do you have a great tendency to focus?

I am susceptible to depression and have always been quite a focused thinker. My mother tells me that even at age 4, I was so obsessed with my favorite football shirt that when she would finally wrestle it away from me to wash it, I would sit by the washing machine until it was done!

On the other hand, my girlfriend's 14 year old is a very happy positive kid, but has worse attention deficit than anyone Ive ever known.

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36. Comment #429607 by SaintStephen on November 5, 2009 at 2:01 am

The ubiquitous use of the catch-all term depression depresses me.

If pressed, I suppose I would categorize myself as being easily prone to mood swings; and yes, I also tend to be single-minded and focused in the extreme, at times.

To me, if nothing else at all comes out of Science in the future, the one thing I fervently wish for is a scientific means for improving, and more importantly sustaining my positive state of mind. I know it's in there, my true saintly demeanor that is, because I can personally manifest happiness, contentment, and even euphoria with the greatest of ease -- at least temporarily -- by simply smoking marijuana.

I want a 24/7 Rankine cycle in my brain, with dopamine as the working fluid. Battery technology will have to improve immensely before this can happen, because I believe a micro-sized external energy source will be necessary to power the mood controller.

Cartomancer: Nice work!

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37. Comment #429635 by bendigeidfran on November 5, 2009 at 8:18 am

That article was drivel. The drivellers appear to have 'discovered' people get depressed and then had some piss-poor arch-adaptationist guesses. What about height variation? Could short people have evolved to hide in cupboards? Here is a short rat with the G6734 cupboard-gene. It's not hard to think of a reason for love genes. There would be a certain ESS with sociopathic random maters etc and others too. Carto's got the love genes bad - now how long should professors spend wondering how this must be helping him? In the environmental circumstances he finds his braincase machine they're shafting him in a bad way. What is the adaptive value of being eaten by a lion? Why did humans evolve to be eaten by lions? Here is another animal being eaten.

Depressed people focus mainly on being depressed. I prefer mania. The 'solutions' to problems are at least entertaining. One favourite is the man who discovered a way to rig aquaria so that 'fish won't die anymore' then sold his house etc to buy the necessary equipment and set off on his daughter's bicycle to traverse America and become a millionaire.

These people get things done.

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38. Comment #429640 by jonjermey on November 5, 2009 at 9:08 am

I suffered severe depression unnecessarily for several years until I stopped seeing it as something caused by the real world and began viewing it as a medical disorder. That sent me to a doctor who was able to diagnose a common medical condition and cure me rapidly with two pills a day. Based on my own experience I suggest that anyone who feels seriously depressed should get a blood test if they haven't already done so.

Incidentally, when I read the comment:

"...among people with late-stage illnesses, those with the greatest sense of well-being were more likely to die in any given period of time than the mildly content were."

My first thought was: 'obviously they are happier because they KNOW they are going to die soon.'

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39. Comment #429644 by PERSON on November 5, 2009 at 10:40 am

"What is the adaptive value of being eaten by a lion?"
That's externally caused. Depression is usually an internal response or sometimes purely internally caused. I can't see that it hasn't been selected for, though there is clearly variation in degree across the population.

FWIW, I was a fan of depression when I was younger. I wasn't a goth or anything. I just liked how it made my mind work. I sustained it for too long, though.

I'm also reminded of Jacques in "As You Like It"

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40. Comment #429648 by bendigeidfran on November 5, 2009 at 11:14 am

Comment #429644 by PERSON

It's just thinking.

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41. Comment #429653 by Simonw on November 5, 2009 at 11:28 am

Quetzalcoatl hit the nail on the head with different types of depression comment.

The article seems to be addressing situational depression, which is depression as a reaction to events - loss of loved one, loss of job etc. Which presumably could have been adaptive.

Clinical depression, where depression is a problematic illness, may sometimes be related to situational depression but often isn't, clearly isn't of itself adaptive. Often when people are clinically depressed they will claim there is a situational reason. Usually they had a reason to feel depressed in the past so they try and find one to explain why they feel similarly now.

My personal experience of depression was due to being drugged into a hypothyroid state caused by trusting a doctor too much. As commented earlier depression can have simple medical causes, and if you feel depressed more than your situation warrants go see the doctor.

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42. Comment #429654 by Peter Grant on November 5, 2009 at 11:32 am

Depression sucks, but drugs do seem to make it more tolerable and sometimes even quite pleasant in strange kind of way. Evolutionarily speaking, I think depression might just be there to force us to rest and recuperate. An injured animal would be more likely to survive in depressed inactive state than an anxious active one.

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43. Comment #429656 by bendigeidfran on November 5, 2009 at 11:47 am

The 'point' of 'physical' pain isn't too hidden either. Michelangelo painted the church ceiling because he had an achey neck.

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44. Comment #429674 by squinky on November 5, 2009 at 3:02 pm

Quetz,

Perhaps I was being a bit extreme but neuroscience is not so tidy as this. There are many subtypes of these receptors and their regulation is quite complex. To suggest that 5HT-1A receptor activation by serotonin is fine but is that it's only role£ Hardly. From wikipedia:

Other effects of 5-HT1A activation include decreased aggression or increased serenic behavior,[41][42] increased sociability,[25] increased impulsivity,[43] inhibition of addictive behavior,[44][45][46] facilitation of sexual behavior and arousal,[47][48] inhibition of penile erection,[49][50] decreased food intake or anorexia,[51] prolongation of REM sleep latency,[52][53] and enhanced breathing or hyperventilation and reversal of opioid-induced respiratory depression.[54]

So let me see...5HT-1A receptor either evolved to enable depression (which is presumably good) or this is just a side effect of activating a behavior-modulating brain receptor (along with many, many others such as the other 4 5-HT receptor subtypes) while regulating aggression, sleep, sexual desire, food intake, breathing, etc...

To suggest that a brain receptor has a single function and was selected for based on a single behavioral attribute to me sounds sophomoric. To suggest we're playing with fire by treating depression with drugs is idiotic. What's the alternative--let depression run its natural course so suicide can thrive£

Begley writes:
In other words, losing the receptor that promotes depression in response to stress is something evolution thought would be a very bad move. Ergo: depression is not something to be thrown out lightly.

Bullshit. Let do the swap.
Squinky writes:
In other words, losing the receptor that promotes schizophrenia or seizures in response to a neurotransmitter is something evolution thought would be a very bad move. Ergo: these diseases are not something to be thrown out lightly.

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45. Comment #429869 by aquilacane on November 5, 2009 at 11:30 pm

Too many thoughts but no control. Then the little pill they gave me. To much control, no thoughts. It's tough to know what you want to do but not have the ability to do it. I prefer the thoughts atleast. no one may never know, but I accomplished something in my mind.

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46. Comment #430118 by Gamma ut on November 7, 2009 at 2:12 am

Im definitely not an expert on this sort of thing, but I'll give it a shot.

I have heard recently that people tend to see the world through "rose-colored glasses" when they are reasonably content -- or they tend to have a more optimistic opinion or evaluation of themselves and their behavior. But sadness causes a person to have a more realistic opinion. I don't know if this would be the same for clinical depression. The paper I am taking the info from is about sadness only (specifically to music's relation to sadness) but it seems that if it is true, there would be some evolutionary benefit to having a temporary reality check from time to time. Again, I am definitely not an expert.

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47. Comment #430309 by Colwyn Abernathy on November 8, 2009 at 3:30 pm

At least it's not More Than Happy...

"We had to put Dave in the mental home...he was...eeeeeehhhh. MORE than happy..."
-George Carlin

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